iambiguous wrote:A world in which economic power begets political power begets police and military power that allows those who own and operate the global economy to predominate in sustaining our most crucial human interactions. In other words so as to benefit themselves.

Also the part about being a pragmatist given the manner in which I construe dasein conflicting goods and political economy. How my own pragmatism begets a hole begets a fractured and fragmented I begets a frame of mind that is far removed from feeling comforted and consoled.

My pragmatism is very simple: I only focus on what has to be done / what can be done. I do not worry about things such as the economic / political / military power of those in charge. What they do may directly / indirectly affect me but if it is beyond my control then there is nothing I can do about it other than to accept it and let it be. Anything else is just a waste of mental energy

Yes, but to what extent have you examined the existential parameters of "I" here?

Why one set of behaviors and not another? Why does this have to be done but not that? To what extent can this be examined and understood rationally by philosophers? Or, instead, to what extent is it embedded existentially in this: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=176529

Out in a world of conflicting goods. Out in a world where what ultimately counts is not what someone believes is right or wrong, but who has the actual power to enforce a particular set of behaviors in any particular context.

And, in a world of contingency, chance and change, what you believe above is ever and always subject to change given new experiences, new relationships and access to new information and knowledge. To new ideas.

I merely probe the complex relationship between what we are able to think ourselves into believing and the extent to which this may well be more a function of human psychology than anything that the tools of philosophy can provide for us.

He was like a man who wanted to change all; and could not; so burned with his impotence; and had only me, an infinitely small microcosm to convert or detest. John Fowles

surreptitious75 wrote:I am not interested in living my life according to any notions of objective truth or objective morality I do not know what they are so instead focus on being pragmatic and doing as little harm as possible

Well, that's potentially similar to how I live my life. Of course, that last part, about doing as little harm as possible, depends on both objective morality and objective truth. To determine what is harming, that is.

Pragmatism, sure. In a No God world awash in hundreds and hundreds of hopelessly conflicting moral and political agendas, we can only grapple with what, at any particular time, seems to be "the best of all possible worlds".

We take our existential leaps and we deal with the consequences. Then it comes down to the extent to which "I" here is deemed to be more or less "fractured and fragmented". And the extent to which this frame of mind allows us to feel more or less "comforted and consoled".

What works for some however doesn't work for others. And you know why I -- "I" -- think that is the case.

Unless of course you don't.

He was like a man who wanted to change all; and could not; so burned with his impotence; and had only me, an infinitely small microcosm to convert or detest. John Fowles

iambiguous wrote:to what extent have you examined the existential parameters of I here ?

Asking if the I actually exists is about as existential as it gets

If everything is a manifestation of Consciouness then there is no I or meThere is no life or death either for they are nothing more than illusions

An object that is being observed does not actually know this . The I or me that is being observed does not know this either forit thinks it has self awareness . But it is Consciousness that is making it self aware rather than it itself even though the illusion is very convincing for many [ including myself ] I am not actually convinced but I do find the concept very interesting however

iambiguous wrote:to what extent have you examined the existential parameters of I here ?

Asking if the I actually exists is about as existential as it gets

True. And down through the ages various philosophers have taken a stab at it. The most notable probably being, "I think, therefore I am".

But even here we seem to have no definitive capacity to demonstrate that thinking is not in itself encompassed in a sim world, or in a manufactured matrix, or in a dream world [think Inception]. Or wholly compelled in a determined universe.

Until all is understood about what we call "the human condition", existential leaps will be a part of any assessments in places like this. Something in particular is assumed, and then something in particular follows from that assumption.

Indeed, that is why some [my ex-wife as I recall] insist that these "philosophical" pursuits are futile. Better instead to focus in on the here and now. Better to make this a better world in whatever manner you have come [politically] to construe that.

But then most here know where that takes me.

surreptitious75 wrote: If everything is a manifestation of Consciouness then there is no I or meThere is no life or death either for they are nothing more than illusions

If. That is the classic assumption of course: if if if...

But: what on earth can something like that possibly mean other than what you think it means "in your head" here and now?

Still, most are able to live with that. They have settled in on the "real me" able to be in sync with "the right thing to do". Either more or less objectively, or more or less pragmatically.

The point being that their own perceived "I" is considerably less fractured and fragmented than mine. And thus able to steer closer to one or another psychological rendition of comfort and consolation.

surreptitious75 wrote: An object that is being observed does not actually know this . The I or me that is being observed does not know this either for it thinks it has self awareness . But it is Consciousness that is making it self aware rather than it itself even though the illusion is very convincing for many [ including myself ] I am not actually convinced but I do find the concept very interesting however

In my view, regarding observations of this sort, the only way we will ever be able to examine and then react to them more intelligibly is by focusing instead on this:

What object being observed by what consciousness in what context?

He was like a man who wanted to change all; and could not; so burned with his impotence; and had only me, an infinitely small microcosm to convert or detest. John Fowles

iambiguous wrote:Pragmatism, sure. In a No God world awash in hundreds and hundreds of hopelessly conflicting moral and political agendas, we can only grapple with what, at any particular time, seems to be "the best of all possible worlds".

I am pretty sure even you think this is false, or it is terribly communicated. I know many people who do not grapple with what seems to be 'the best of all possible worlds'.

We take our existential leaps and we deal with the consequences.

We're alive, we act, even if very little. These actions affect what happens. i don't think the wildly abstract and quite academic serious philosophy sounding 'existential leaps' clarifies anything in regard to most of what we do. we have been acting since birth, heck even before, though with effects restricted to two people. And there seems to be great variation in to what degree people 'deal with the consequences'. I think you are universalizing your sense of your own experience. Against the judgment I'd expect someone focusing on dasein would have.

Not acting would be a leap, and the only way to get to that would be suicide. Otherwise one is surely committed to acting. So it is not a leap. To stop it would be a leap.

If you think you have stepped outside acting and think you are looking at life from outside it, choices can seem like leaps. But in fact there is no outside, there is no not leaping, no leaping. There is this continued experiencing and acting.

Then it comes down to the extent to which "I" here is deemed to be more or less "fractured and fragmented".

You do realize that the passive voice, that grammatical construction makes your statements objectivist statements and universal ones. Must 'it', whatever 'it' is, come down to what you say. Are you sure there is a correlation here in general? It seems to me there are people content with the 'I' and the fragmented not unified self. I think Foucault was, or claimed to be. It seems like you use your own experience of your situation and what causes it and assume that others would have the same experience of fragmentation or the lack thereof that you do or would.

And the extent to which this frame of mind allows us to feel more or less "comforted and consoled".

Ibid.

What works for some however doesn't work for others. And you know why I -- "I" -- think that is the case.

But precisely! However you always generalize that this or that belief is caused by the need to console and/or does console. IOW you universalize based on your own experience. If person X believes X then it either does console them, is to console them, or both. You have a bunch of universal rules you calculate what a belief must mean and do for another person all the time. If someone seems less fragmented, it is because they are consoling themselves with some belief. According to you. But this assumption contradicts your own sense that dasein affects people in many different ways. You use yourself as the template and assume things, while at other times defending your disinterest in things by pointing out that they do not work for you. That we are not all the same.

So, for example, you assume if I'm, it appears, less fragmented than you, then I must have a contraption to console myself. And you think, ever oddly, that the onus on me is to prove I am not consoling myself somehow. You believe dasein, that is experiences radically affect the self or 'self'. You have acknowledged that genetics make differences. Yet, you repeated universalize, using yourself as the template. We all have this habit to some degree, but for someone who keeps brining up dasein and the problems of knowing in general, it is a very odd habit and such an oddly fixed one in your case.

And for someone so fragmented and fractured, how is it that you produce almost the exact same texts over and over. Wouldn't someone who is fractured and fragmented be more all over the place. Where is the diversity?

I know people who are what is considered clinically fractured, real dissociation or depersonalization, etc. These people have different viewpoints, moods, positions on things, reactions to things, ways of communicating, depending on the personality that is 'in charge' or the day or what has happened to them. More diversity than statistically more average people display. You seem less diverse, more uniform, more consistent, unwavering...in temperament, content of communication and form of communication.

I think you are confusing not being able to reach a conclusion, and wishing you could with an experience of fragmentation. Yes, you notice that you have moral positions, and this sits uneasily with you sense that you have no way of knowing if they are correct or not. Yes, that is a lack of total unity. But most people have all sorts of splits, whether the consciously notice them or not and these cause all sorts of side effects. And you can see these contradictions and stresses in the variance in how they act, communicate and the beliefs they put forward in different situations.

IOW your fragmentation is mostly mental verbal based. Cognitive, idea-based. I know you have had some kind of traumatic experiences, but you seem locked into a utterly unified pattern of relation and focus. Not fragmented and fractured, with all the complexity that comes from that. Being tortured by not being able to resolve a mental issue and restating that issue over and over is not fragmentation, it's fixation.

Your comunication is utterly consistent. After years your morals are still liberal lefty and you are upset that you have no way to know if they are correct or if any others are correct. No fragmentation or fracturing is presented, just a dillemma that you focus on with the unified passion a dog has for a bone.

The dog may never get to the marrow, that doesn't make him fractured, it makes him frustrated in relation to his singular goal. And this is interesting.

I am not saying you are not fractured and fragmented, but where is it? You come off as the least fragmented and fractured person here. Steady as she goes, day after day, same output, repetition, even keel. Cut and paste, link to posts from long ago, since you are consistent over time, over long periods of time. No changes in mood, no speculating down new alleys. No bursts of other ways of approaching things. Nothing new in terms of current experiences entering the discussion. Someone fractured and fragmented, it seems to me, should be the least like a bot.

Shit, you are still interesting. Sigh. People present different modes of life. I find them interesting. I suppose I have always been interested in what leads to ruts and what can change ruts. Or habits or patterns. Or you could look at the issue of learning or not learning. I know what your stated goal for learning is here. In the past I focused on the tools you use. Other times I focused on what you were doing to others. Now it strikes me as very odd your sense of yourself. Now on second thought, that has come up before. But there are some things I have taken at face value, like your assessment of yourself as fragmented. If anything I would say the problem you are showing, like someone with OCD, is that diversity is not allowed. A single mental verbal dilemma endlessly fussed with in the same way. Like adjusting a coaster over and over on the table to make sure it is parallel to the edges of the table. Over and over.

I'm sure it feels like the solution, if there is one, is getting that coaster at a perfect parallel to the edges of the table. It seems like you feel that way. That if only there was a way to know for sure that it is parallel, then you would not be fractured. Then you would be whole. But a truly fractured and fragmented person would have to try other things. Not because that's the right thing to do, but because a fractured and fragmented person cannot be so consistent. Because in the cluster of different urges and selves and beliefs in that not unifed 'self', there would be different urges, different strategies, different things to want to say.

Guide wrote:All things that are now once were "not yet". Everything "then" comes before everything as it "now" is. Ergo, it is pointless to assign causation, since that would be to pick a detail out of the whole of what came before.

That in physics one speaks of local causality shows a failure of physics in the light of this reasoned law. Ergo, its falling back on probabilities and accidents.

Causality is false, since there is no possibility of asking about it. All things, the whole past, become all things, the whole now. Nothing can be carved out and named other than "all things" as those things that, each one, belong to the whole of the past.

iambiguous wrote:Pragmatism, sure. In a No God world awash in hundreds and hundreds of hopelessly conflicting moral and political agendas, we can only grapple with what, at any particular time, seems to be "the best of all possible worlds".

I am pretty sure even you think this is false, or it is terribly communicated. I know many people who do not grapple with what seems to be 'the best of all possible worlds'.

Yeah, the objectivists in particular. Or those who remove themselves entirely from having to confront conflicting goods. Or the narcissistic sociopaths.

As for the pragmatists, they grapple to the extent that they are construe "I" here as I do.

We take our existential leaps and we deal with the consequences.

Karpel Tunnel wrote: We're alive, we act, even if very little. These actions affect what happens. i don't think the wildly abstract and quite academic serious philosophy sounding 'existential leaps' clarifies anything in regard to most of what we do. we have been acting since birth, heck even before, though with effects restricted to two people. And there seems to be great variation in to what degree people 'deal with the consequences'. I think you are universalizing your sense of your own experience. Against the judgment I'd expect someone focusing on dasein would have.

Not acting would be a leap, and the only way to get to that would be suicide. Otherwise one is surely committed to acting. So it is not a leap. To stop it would be a leap.

If you think you have stepped outside acting and think you are looking at life from outside it, choices can seem like leaps. But in fact there is no outside, there is no not leaping, no leaping. There is this continued experiencing and acting.

This certainly clarifies very little. Again, let's focus in on the acting that folks do in regard to a particular context most here will be familiar with. What can we be certain about in communicating the choices that we make? And what is [perhaps] more the embodiment of "I" as an existential contraption?

Pick something that is of importance to you.

And not just "analysis" such as this:

Karpel Tunnel wrote: You do realize that the passive voice, that grammatical construction makes your statements objectivist statements and universal ones. Must 'it', whatever 'it' is, come down to what you say. Are you sure there is a correlation here in general? It seems to me there are people content with the 'I' and the fragmented not unified self. I think Foucault was, or claimed to be. It seems like you use your own experience of your situation and what causes it and assume that others would have the same experience of fragmentation or the lack thereof that you do or would.

Just more "intellectual" bullshit in my view. Grammar? Passive voice? Name an experience that will take us out into the world such that we encompass values in conflict, and note the manner in which your own pragmatism here leaves you less fragmanted and fractured than I construe my own sense of identity.

Embedded and embodied [here and now] largely in this frame of mind:

I believe that unborn babies have the right to life. And I believe that women have the right to abort them. How do "I" then reconcile that? Well, I can't. Both sides make convincing arguments. Reasonable arguments. I am drawn and quartered.

And how would my choice regarding any particular abortion in any particular context here not be an existential leap?

How is your own pragmatism not in turn an existential leap to one point of view given one set of circumstances construed in one particular way. How is "I" here not largely rooted in dasein?

What can philosophers/ethicists pin down for us so that "I" is the least irrational and immoral?

Imstead it's just more "generalization" from you.

Karpel Tunnel wrote: However you always generalize that this or that belief is caused by the need to console and/or does console. IOW you universalize based on your own experience. If person X believes X then it either does console them, is to console them, or both. You have a bunch of universal rules you calculate what a belief must mean and do for another person all the time. If someone seems less fragmented, it is because they are consoling themselves with some belief. According to you. But this assumption contradicts your own sense that dasein affects people in many different ways. You use yourself as the template and assume things, while at other times defending your disinterest in things by pointing out that they do not work for you. That we are not all the same.

Person X? Templates? Let's bring this down to earth. And this too...

Karpel Tunnel wrote: So, for example, you assume if I'm, it appears, less fragmented than you, then I must have a contraption to console myself. And you think, ever oddly, that the onus on me is to prove I am not consoling myself somehow. You believe dasein, that is experiences radically affect the self or 'self'. You have acknowledged that genetics make differences. Yet, you repeated universalize, using yourself as the template. We all have this habit to some degree, but for someone who keeps brining up dasein and the problems of knowing in general, it is a very odd habit and such an oddly fixed one in your case.

This tells me nothing of what I recognize in my own frame of mind here. When I am actually confronting conflicting goods. And it certainly tells us nothing of your own point of view. Other than as an intellectual contraption.

Karpel Tunnel wrote: And for someone so fragmented and fractured, how is it that you produce almost the exact same texts over and over. Wouldn't someone who is fractured and fragmented be more all over the place. Where is the diversity?

The texts relate to the manner in which I have come to think about the existential intertwining of identity, value judgments and political power.

Out in an actual context.

The manner in which "I" have become fractured and fragmented with respect to conflicting goods in the is/ought world.

Here I am just struggling to understand how your own rendition of pragmatism apparently leaves you less "broken" when confronting moral and political conflicts in a No God world.

But you almost never come down out of the clouds...

Karpel Tunnel wrote: I know people who are what is considered clinically fractured, real dissociation or depersonalization, etc. These people have different viewpoints, moods, positions on things, reactions to things, ways of communicating, depending on the personality that is 'in charge' or the day or what has happened to them. More diversity than statistically more average people display. You seem less diverse, more uniform, more consistent, unwavering...in temperament, content of communication and form of communication.

My own fragmentation is not clinical. It is philosophical. I have mangaged to think myself into believing that this...

If I am always of the opinion that 1] my own values are rooted in dasein and 2] that there are no objective values "I" can reach, then every time I make one particular moral/political leap, I am admitting that I might have gone in the other direction...or that I might just as well have gone in the other direction. Then "I" begins to fracture and fragment to the point there is nothing able to actually keep it all together. At least not with respect to choosing sides morally and politically.

...is a reasonable point of view. How then is it not deemed to be reasonable by others...in terms of their own chosen behaviors when confronting moral and political conflicts.

The trajectory of my own particular "I" here is embedded existentially in this:

1] I was raised in the belly of the working class beast. My family/community were very conservative. Abortion was a sin. 2] I was drafted into the Army and while on my "tour of duty" in Vietnam I happened upon politically radical folks who reconfigured my thinking about abortion. And God and lots of other things.3] after I left the Army, I enrolled in college and became further involved in left wing politics. It was all the rage back then. I became a feminist. I married a feminist. I wholeheartedly embraced a woman's right to choose.4] then came the calamity with Mary and John. I loved them both but their engagement was foundering on the rocks that was Mary's choice to abort their unborn baby. 5] back and forth we all went. I supported Mary but I could understand the points that John was making. I could understand the arguments being made on both sides. John was right from his side and Mary was right from hers.6] I read William Barrett's Irrational Man and came upon his conjectures regarding "rival goods".7] Then, over time, I abandoned an objectivist frame of mind that revolved around Marxism/feminism. Instead, I became more and more embedded in existentialism. And then as more years passed I became an advocate for moral nihilism.

How then is this not applicable to others? What is the existential trajectory of their own moral philosophy? Regarding abortion or any other behaviors that come into conflict over moral and political values.

Instead, it's back up into the clouds...

Karpel Tunnel wrote: I think you are confusing not being able to reach a conclusion, and wishing you could with an experience of fragmentation. Yes, you notice that you have moral positions, and this sits uneasily with you sense that you have no way of knowing if they are correct or not. Yes, that is a lack of total unity. But most people have all sorts of splits, whether the consciously notice them or not and these cause all sorts of side effects. And you can see these contradictions and stresses in the variance in how they act, communicate and the beliefs they put forward in different situations.

IOW your fragmentation is mostly mental verbal based. Cognitive, idea-based. I know you have had some kind of traumatic experiences, but you seem locked into a utterly unified pattern of relation and focus. Not fragmented and fractured, with all the complexity that comes from that. Being tortured by not being able to resolve a mental issue and restating that issue over and over is not fragmentation, it's fixation.

How on earth is this "world of words" applicable to me or you given a particular context? Let's pick one and explore it.

Karpel Tunnel wrote: Your comunication is utterly consistent. After years your morals are still liberal lefty and you are upset that you have no way to know if they are correct or if any others are correct. No fragmentation or fracturing is presented, just a dillemma that you focus on with the unified passion a dog has for a bone.

I spent nearly 25 years in radical left wing political organizations. Of course my political leaps/prejudices are going to be more liberal than conservative. But that doesn't make the conflicting goods go away. That doesn't make my trajectory above any less relevant regarding my considerably more fractured value judgments today.

Karpel Tunnel wrote: I'm sure it feels like the solution, if there is one, is getting that coaster at a perfect parallel to the edges of the table. It seems like you feel that way. That if only there was a way to know for sure that it is parallel, then you would not be fractured. Then you would be whole. But a truly fractured and fragmented person would have to try other things. Not because that's the right thing to do, but because a fractured and fragmented person cannot be so consistent. Because in the cluster of different urges and selves and beliefs in that not unifed 'self', there would be different urges, different strategies, different things to want to say.

What on earth am I to make of this? It really does border on psych-babble to me.

We need to make this whole discussion more concrete.

He was like a man who wanted to change all; and could not; so burned with his impotence; and had only me, an infinitely small microcosm to convert or detest. John Fowles

iambiguous wrote:I am pretty sure even you think this is false, or it is terribly communicated. I know many people who do not grapple with what seems to be 'the best of all possible worlds'.

Yeah, the objectivists in particular. Or those who remove themselves entirely from having to confront conflicting goods. Or the narcissistic sociopaths.

This would be most people on earth. So, without conceding that your generalization, your universalising what we do, you now say it is a very small minority who does this.

We take our existential leaps and we deal with the consequences.

Karpel Tunnel wrote: We're alive, we act, even if very little. These actions affect what happens. i don't think the wildly abstract and quite academic serious philosophy sounding 'existential leaps' clarifies anything in regard to most of what we do. we have been acting since birth, heck even before, though with effects restricted to two people. And there seems to be great variation in to what degree people 'deal with the consequences'. I think you are universalizing your sense of your own experience. Against the judgment I'd expect someone focusing on dasein would have.

Not acting would be a leap, and the only way to get to that would be suicide. Otherwise one is surely committed to acting. So it is not a leap. To stop it would be a leap.

If you think you have stepped outside acting and think you are looking at life from outside it, choices can seem like leaps. But in fact there is no outside, there is no not leaping, no leaping. There is this continued experiencing and acting.

This certainly clarifies very little.

Well it was a criticism of the vague term you used and the existence of those leaps. If you disagree, you could do it in the context of what I wrote. Say, what my criticism of this vague and I think incorrect term missed. Or if you did not understand, say where.

But what you did was to label it, not refer to it, and repeat something you have requested time and again.

Again, let's focus in on the acting that folks do in regard to a particular context most here will be familiar with. What can we be certain about in communicating the choices that we make? And what is [perhaps] more the embodiment of "I" as an existential contraption?

Pick something that is of importance to you.

And not just "analysis" such as this:

Karpel Tunnel wrote: You do realize that the passive voice, that grammatical construction makes your statements objectivist statements and universal ones. Must 'it', whatever 'it' is, come down to what you say. Are you sure there is a correlation here in general? It seems to me there are people content with the 'I' and the fragmented not unified self. I think Foucault was, or claimed to be. It seems like you use your own experience of your situation and what causes it and assume that others would have the same experience of fragmentation or the lack thereof that you do or would.

Just more "intellectual" bullshit in my view. Grammar? Passive voice?

Yup. You write vague academic sentences that are objectivist. I should point that out to an anti-objectivist.

Earlier you universal what one must do. But it turns out almost no one does this.

Does it matter to you that you are doing what you are critical of? If objectivism is the problem you think, but are not sure it is, doesn't it matter if you act like an objectivist.

If you think serious philosophers are a problem or intellectual bullshit is aproblem, why do you use terms like dasein and existential leaps, when there are very easy ways to convey these ideas in every day language and further there is little justification for the latter`?

Name an experience that will take us out into the world such that we encompass values in conflict, and note the manner in which your own pragmatism here leaves you less fragmanted and fractured than I construe my own sense of identity.

You have no memory. I have never said that my pragmatism leaves me less fragmented. I suspect but am not sure, that you experience yourself as more fragmented not because you are not pragmatic. ONe, you are. I have explained how you are before. Two, I think you are hurting yourself, but trying to solve the pain you have in ways that will not help you at all. But of this I am nto sure. You are the one that thinks my pragmatism makes me less fractured. which is weird, since it could have to do with my experiences or my close connections to people or to my inborn temperment or the luck of the genetic draw.

You are asking me to demonstrate your own assertion.

How is your own pragmatism not in turn an existential leap to one point of view given one set of circumstances construed in one particular way.

God you are obtuse. How is a lion stalking a gazelle a point of view.

How is "I" here not largely rooted in dasein?

Of course my actions and attitudes are affected by my experiences and milieu.

You repeatedly attribute beliefs to me I do not have.

What can philosophers/ethicists pin down for us so that "I" is the least irrational and immoral?

Imstead it's just more "generalization" from you.

No, I didn't generalize. I focused on what you wrote, specific points and pointed out the confusion. I am not trying to solve the problem of conflicting goods. I have said many times I do not think there is a solution. That you do not know this still is absolutely beyond my ability to understand.

How utterly disrespectful.

The texts relate to the manner in which I have come to think about the existential intertwining of identity, value judgments and political power.

So, you have one manner of thinking. Doesn't seem very fractured.

Here I am just struggling to understand how your own rendition of pragmatism apparently leaves you less "broken" when confronting moral and political conflicts in a No God world.

You're the one who thinks my pragmatism is an addition to your set of contraptions.

I have less contraptions.

But you almost never come down out of the clouds...

LOL, pot calling...

My own fragmentation is not clinical. It is philosophical. I have mangaged to think myself into believing that this...

Then quit fucking whining. You wouldn't know real fragmentation then if it hit you in the face. You might well have your undies in a knot over a crossword puzzle. A storm in a tea cup. You are presentign yourself as some tortured victim over a conundrum. You are frustrated and focused on a philosophical issue. That's not fragmented and fractured. DRamatic language that has to do with states you do not have.

If I am always of the opinion that 1] my own values are rooted in dasein and 2] that there are no objective values "I" can reach, then every time I make one particular moral/political leap, I am admitting that I might have gone in the other direction...or that I might just as well have gone in the other direction. Then "I" begins to fracture and fragment to the point there is nothing able to actually keep it all together. At least not with respect to choosing sides morally and politically.

...is a reasonable point of view. How then is it not deemed to be reasonable by others...in terms of their own chosen behaviors when confronting moral and political conflicts.

Sure, it's a reasonable point of view. Now what. You can spend the rest of your life complaining about this or you can focus on something else. You seem to think you must pursue the answer to this. That's a contraptoin I do not share. So I am less tortured than you...

Why?

Because I believe something`?

No because I lack a contraption you have, that compels you endlessly to demand answers to this, as if this was a moral or practical must.

I am less fragmented because I have less contraptions.

Just as otters have less.

How on earth is this "world of words" applicable to me or you given a particular context? Let's pick one and explore it.

I spent nearly 25 years in radical left wing political organizations. Of course my political leaps/prejudices are going to be more liberal than conservative. But that doesn't make the conflicting goods go away.

And of course I never said it did. Did I?

Did I?

Always attributing things to me I have never said or even thought. I don't think conflicting goods goes away. I have said that before.

Waht is wrong with you`?

This is concrete shit. You make up stuff. over and over. In interpersonal real life interactions. I have never had to deal with an abortion. I have had to deal with you.

What on earth am I to make of this? It really does border on psych-babble to me.

We need to make this whole discussion more concrete.

I did do that back when. You disrespected concrete things by hallucinating stuff on me. So I focus on you and the concrete acts and patterns of actions performed here by you. Concrete as it gets.

You make up stuff about other people and about stuff that is very obviously not the case. It's a problem. It doesn't seem to matter to you when it is pointed out.

OK.

You need to think I have more contraptions than you and this rescues me. You need that. I dont know why.

Karpel Tunnel wrote:I am pretty sure even you think this is false, or it is terribly communicated. I know many people who do not grapple with what seems to be 'the best of all possible worlds'.

Yeah, the objectivists in particular. Or those who remove themselves entirely from having to confront conflicting goods. Or the narcissistic sociopaths.

Karpel Tunnel wrote:This would be most people on earth. So, without conceding that your generalization, your universalising what we do, you now say it is a very small minority who does this.

Well, if you include the nihilists who own and operate the global economy, then only a very, very, very small minority indeed.

Look, someone is either convinced that they are in sync with the "real me" in sync with "the right thing to do", or, as with those very, very, very few like me, they don't.

I'm just trying to figure out how, in a presumably No God world lacking in objective morality, pragmatists like you are able to grapple with conflicting goods and experience [what appears to me to be] considerably less fragmentation.

I presume it is because you do not construe "I" here as I do. But how "out in the world" does that actually work for you for all practical purposes?

This certainly clarifies very little.

Karpel Tunnel wrote:Well it was a criticism of the vague term you used and the existence of those leaps. If you disagree, you could do it in the context of what I wrote. Say, what my criticism of this vague and I think incorrect term missed. Or if you did not understand, say where.

It's not vague at all. When I am confronted with conflicting goods --- from abortion and capital punishment which are matters of life and death, to the most inconsequential of value judgments -- I construe myself -- my "self" -- as fractured and fragmented. In other words, to the point that I have come to recognize that "I" here is largely an existential contraption confronting arguments able to be rationalized simply by starting out with conflicting sets of initial assumptions.

What else is there then but existential [and/or pragmatic] leaps to particular political prejudices embodied over the course of the actual life that one has lived?

Then I ask folks to bring abstractions of this sort down to earth and to note how that is more or less applicable to them in regard to a particular context.

Instead, you invariably choose to stay up in the scholastic clouds:

Karpel Tunnel wrote: You do realize that the passive voice, that grammatical construction makes your statements objectivist statements and universal ones. Must 'it', whatever 'it' is, come down to what you say. Are you sure there is a correlation here in general? It seems to me there are people content with the 'I' and the fragmented not unified self. I think Foucault was, or claimed to be. It seems like you use your own experience of your situation and what causes it and assume that others would have the same experience of fragmentation or the lack thereof that you do or would.

To which I invariably respond:

Just more "intellectual" bullshit in my view. Grammar? Passive voice?

Then back up into the "general description" stratosphere you go:

Karpel Tunnel wrote:Yup. You write vague academic sentences that are objectivist. I should point that out to an anti-objectivist.

Earlier you universal what one must do. But it turns out almost no one does this.

Does it matter to you that you are doing what you are critical of? If objectivism is the problem you think, but are not sure it is, doesn't it matter if you act like an objectivist.

If you think serious philosophers are a problem or intellectual bullshit is aproblem, why do you use terms like dasein and existential leaps, when there are very easy ways to convey these ideas in every day language and further there is little justification for the latter`?

Or so it certainly seems to me.

The only way I could be construed as an objectivist here [as I understand the meaning of it] is to insist that all others are obligated to think as I do. Why? Because I have come to conclude that the components of my own moral philsophy reflect the optimal or the only rational manner in which to construe human interactions that do come into conflict over value judgments.

Name an experience that will take us out into the world such that we encompass values in conflict, and note the manner in which your own pragmatism here leaves you less fragmanted and fractured than I construe my own sense of identity.

Karpel Tunnel wrote:You have no memory. I have never said that my pragmatism leaves me less fragmented. I suspect but am not sure, that you experience yourself as more fragmented not because you are not pragmatic. ONe, you are. I have explained how you are before. Two, I think you are hurting yourself, but trying to solve the pain you have in ways that will not help you at all. But of this I am nto sure. You are the one that thinks my pragmatism makes me less fractured. which is weird, since it could have to do with my experiences or my close connections to people or to my inborn temperment or the luck of the genetic draw.

Okay, but all we can really do here is to shift the discussion to the manner in which we act around and then react towards others when confonting instances in which they confront our own moral values. Either as objectivists or as pragmatists or as narcissistic sociopaths or as nihilists who own and operate the global economy. How others go about rationalizing their own behavioirs.

You certainly seem less fractured and fragmented here than I am. But [I'm thinking] only [perhaps] because we have not brought our own philosopohical narratives down to earth enough times to explore this more substantively.

How is your own pragmatism not in turn an existential leap to one point of view given one set of circumstances construed in one particular way.

Karpel Tunnel wrote:God you are obtuse. How is a lion stalking a gazelle a point of view.

This part I am completely baffled by. Lions and gazelles never delve into things like objectivist or pragmatic or sociopathic or nihilistic thinking/behaving. It is entirely genetics with them.

Try to reconfigure this point please.

What can philosophers/ethicists pin down for us so that "I" is the least irrational and immoral?

Imstead it's just more "generalization" from you.

Karpel Tunnel wrote:No, I didn't generalize. I focused on what you wrote, specific points and pointed out the confusion. I am not trying to solve the problem of conflicting goods. I have said many times I do not think there is a solution. That you do not know this still is absolutely beyond my ability to understand.

How utterly disrespectful.

If my aim here is to encounter moral narratives that may well facilitate me in yanking "I" up out of the hole that I am in, I can only pursue narratives like your own in a manner that seems reasonable to me. If the manner in which I choose to do this seems unreasonable to you that [in my view] is often just the nature of these exchanges. You can then choose not to engage me on these threads and move on to others.

The texts relate to the manner in which I have come to think about the existential intertwining of identity, value judgments and political power.

Karpel Tunnel wrote:So, you have one manner of thinking. Doesn't seem very fractured.

If "for all practical purposes" I am drawn and quartered when confronting conflicting goods, when confronting "I" as an existential contraption, when confronting political economy as the final arbiter out in the real world, when confronting my own death as the obliteration of "I", that is fractured enough believe me.

Here I am just struggling to understand how your own rendition of pragmatism apparently leaves you less "broken" when confronting moral and political conflicts in a No God world.

Karpel Tunnel wrote:You're the one who thinks my pragmatism is an addition to your set of contraptions.I have less contraptions.

Okay, but what on earth does that mean? What part of your reaction when confronting the values of others who don't share your own seems to be more on solid ground? And what part seems instead to be just the embodiment of "I" as an existential contrapment such that you recognize that had your life been very different you might easily have embrace the opposite point of point? And then in turn recognizing that even if you had embraced the opposite value neither is necessarily good or bad.

In a No God world.

My own fragmentation is not clinical. It is philosophical. I have mangaged to think myself into believing that this...

Karpel Tunnel wrote:Then quit fucking whining.

Well, if you call me honestly and introspectively believing that this...

If I am always of the opinion that 1] my own values are rooted in dasein and 2] that there are no objective values "I" can reach, then every time I make one particular moral/political leap, I am admitting that I might have gone in the other direction...or that I might just as well have gone in the other direction. Then "I" begins to fracture and fragment to the point there is nothing able to actually keep it all together. At least not with respect to choosing sides morally and politically.

...is just me whining, then our understanding of the limitations of philosophy out in the is/ought world are clearly not in sync.

Karpel Tunnel wrote:You wouldn't know real fragmentation then if it hit you in the face. You might well have your undies in a knot over a crossword puzzle. A storm in a tea cup. You are presentign yourself as some tortured victim over a conundrum. You are frustrated and focused on a philosophical issue. That's not fragmented and fractured. DRamatic language that has to do with states you do not have.

Of course: Huffing and puffing. Making me the issue.

Yeah, I get that a lot.

And, by and large, I speculate that this revolves largely around the possibility that I have hit a nerve. Sure, far more with the objectivists, but not altogether out of the question with the "less tortured" pragmatists like you.

He was like a man who wanted to change all; and could not; so burned with his impotence; and had only me, an infinitely small microcosm to convert or detest. John Fowles

iambiguous wrote:My point is that whatever is behind [or explains] the existence of existence itself led to my birth in this particular world.

What is existence of existence itself? You have to define what you mean by that because when you use that lingo all I see is dhjksaljdskbasdvbcnxzncnvdsfhjarght.

How can the existence of existence itself be defined?!

That's what I'm saying: it's nonsense. But if you mean something by it, then what do you mean?

Only when it is determined definitively why something -- why anything -- exist at all [going all the way back to how and why that is the case] can it be pinned down with a definition.

I told you before: something exists in terms of a context. But the totality of everything has no context in which to exist, so it can't be thought of in that way: as existing. It doesn't exist unless you specify what it exists in relation to, and since there is nothing not already contained in the totality that is everything, then there is nothing that the totality can be said to exist in relation to.

Serendipper wrote: In order for you to control whether you prefer pepsi to coke there would have to exist a you independent of you who could orchestrate all the matter that forms you in conformance to how you want to exist. If there is no you controlling how you are made, then you are a slave to whatever process is making you and you'll have no control over whether you prefer pepsi or coke or like them equally.

Now this is the sort of mental masturbation that is embedded in intellectual contraptions to me. There is in fact an actual flesh and blood me.

But did you orchestrate the creation of the flesh and blood you? Did you give yourself brown or blue eyes?

And over the course of my life [for whatever reasons existentially] I acquired a taste for both Coke and Pepsi. More specifically Diet Coke and Diet Pepsi.

lol

To the extent I had any control over this is rooted in the actual existential variables that predisposed my choice here. Or in a wholly determined universe in which I was never really free to not choose [autonomously] either one, neither one or both.

Yep, so there you go.

Serendipper wrote: Everything is a contraption. We cannot think in terms of anything other than contraptions. So pointing out that everything is a contraption doesn't change anything or convey any information.

Depends on how broadly you want to define "contraption".

There are nature's contraptions embedded in the laws of physics.

There are no "laws" of physics. There are only observed regularities and there is not enough evidence to proclaim them laws.

There are human contraptions [like watches or cigarette lighters] derived from the laws of nature.

Mechanical contraptions vs thought contraptions. I get it.

And thoughts are contraptions originating in the brain. But: What thoughts can be demonstrated to reflect that which is deemed to be an objective reality

There is no objective reality.

and what thoughts are subsumed instead in subjective/subjunctive contraptions.

All of em.

Defining and describing an apple is one thing. Reacting to the fact that John Doe poisoned an apple that Don Trump ate, killing him, another thing altogether.

Why?

Contraption = concept

The contraption known as reacting applied to a concept known as fact describing concepts known as names, such as John Doe, and concepts such as poisons and yada yada.

The smurf smurfed the smurfy smurf before it smurfed the smurf. All contraptions.

Really? Okay, demonstrate this. Demonstrate that there is absolutely no possibility that an absolute morality exist in regard to an issue like abortion.

Demonstrate that the color red exists to a blind man. I can only demonstrate what you can see. Simply see that absolute anything cannot exist and there is your demonstration, but I can't make you see that, especially if you're determined not to.

First you have to see that existence is always relational. What something is is determine just as much by how the beholder is put together as it does how the object is put together. There is no such thing as a object existing in an objective way.

All some need do is to cite one or another God and Scripture here.

Where "god and scripture" means "pulled from my ass" lol

Others embrace one or another rendition of Humanism and insist that, using Reason, we can derive -- deduce -- the whole truth here.

Not that I'm aware of nor can imagine.

Over and again I point out that the "whole of everything" embedded in all of the "unknown unknowns" we are not yet privy to seems to be a given for all of us. Still, in a particular context relating to particular human interactions what on earth does, "you cannot verify your foundation of empiricism with empiricism" mean?

Serendipper wrote: It means you cannot use X to prove X is true. You cannot use logic to prove logic is true. You cannot use observation to prove what you're seeing is true.

Okay, but again: In what particular context relating to what particular conflicting behaviors?

All of em. You can't use a thing itself to prove a thing is true. Like the bible is true because it says it's true.

Serendipper wrote: The gut feeling is generated by the same fundamental forces that make everything else go. That doesn't take away from consciousness as much as it adds to everything else.

But who is able to connect the dots between these "fundamental forces" and any particular things that they think, feel, say or do?

Serendipper wrote: There are no dots. The dots are abstractions.

The dots are a figure of speech. But the gap between what you describe as "fundamental forces" and the choices that you make from day to day don't go away unless you can connect them. And we don't even appear to have connected enough of them [yet] in order to determine if consciousness itself is not but another of nature's dominoes.

Serendipper wrote: Connecting dots is a red herring and waste of time. It doesn't matter how the dots are connected, the fact remains that they are connected. Why get burdened down rehearsing how forces cause consciousness when we already know there cannot be discontinuities?

Then we understand the dots and connecting them in different ways. There are factors/variables that we can explore and probe relating to the choices that we make from moment to moment. And there is how you connect them to that which you construe to be "fundamental forces". You seem to be insisting here that the fact that they are connected need be as far as we go. You see no need to bring this down to earth and note how this particular intellectual contraption is related existentially to the things that you do. That way [in my opinion] you can stay up in the clouds encompassed in your "general descriptions" of these relationships.

There are no dots, just is just the whole thing, but you cut it apart and ask how this affects that, but forgot that it's all one thing and there is no this or that independent of the whole. Cut it this way and see there is a different way of joining them back together than if you had cut it some other way.

Here's a way to bring it down to earth: Feynman recounted a time he was investigating his estimation of the passage of time, so he'd count and found counting to 48 was about a minute. Then he'd do chores while counting to see if there were any effects (there were none), but he found he could not talk while counting. He was at Princeton at the time and met up with a mathematician who expressed disbelief that he could not talk and count, and found it incredible that he could read while counting. So they compared notes and found that Feynman was using a verbal center of his brain to count while the mathematician was using a visual center, so Feynman could read and count, but not talk; and the mathematician could talk, but not read. There's two ways of cutting apart the same problem, which is how to use a brain to count. Why one or the other? Idk, that's a new problem to cut up.

Serendipper wrote: Where is the empirical proof that empirical proof is relevant?

Well, if by empirical evidence we mean "the information received by means of the senses, particularly by observation and documentation of patterns and behavior through experimentation" science seems to make use of it re the laws of nature. Engineers and the inventors of technology [like computers] seem to find it especially reliable.

Serendipper wrote: What do you consider observation? Is 2+2=4 observed or deduced? What's the difference? Do you see what I mean? Do you observe what I mean? Do you deduce what I mean?

I don't construe this as addressing the point I made. The either/or world is bursting at the seams with empirical relationships that science and inventors and engineers are able to reconfigure into buildings and airplanes and spaceships and smart phones. Both induction and deduction are utilized in accomplishing these transformations.

Induction and deduction are not the same as observation and deduction. Observation and deduction are the same thing, just with different sense organs. The empirical proof that empirical proof is relevant is observed empirically. The foundation supports itself. Outside of circular arguments, where is the proof? There is none. How do you prove logic is true without using logic? How do you prove what you see is what you see without appealing to what you see?

Serendipper wrote:So then you're saying that you know there is [no] way of knowing which returns us to my other question which is why are you seeking what cannot be found?

Why? Because I have no way of knowing for certain that it cannot be found. I only think that "here and now". Thus all I can do is to come into places like this and seek out the narratives of others.

Serendipper wrote: But your presupposition is that the answer cannot be found. You've appealed to it plenty before: why have so many before not found the answer? What questions will be asked in the future? Everyone here thinks he's found the answer. Yada yada. You're convinced no one can know.

That's your assumption about my "presupposition".

Of course.

My own conjectures here revolve around two general assumptions:

1] the gap between what any of us think we know about these relationships here and now and all there is to be known about the existence of existence itself

What the heck? Define existence of existence itself. If you're going to use it in a sentence, define what it means.

2] the implications embedded in a wholly determined universe regarding anything we might think or feel or say or do

Either the whole determined universe is you or there is no you. Either way works. There is either an environment or an organism, but not both. As long as you divide them up, you're going to wonder which is determining the other.

Come on, the gap here between my experiences, relationships, and access to information/knowledge and all there is to know about all there is to know is the equivalent of a teeny, tiny drop of water in the ocean. There is a staggering amount of experiences and ideas that I have had no contact with at all. The same with all the rest of us.

And even as I type these words, who knows how many folks are out there with points of view that I have never even really considered. Points of view far, far more sophisticated than mine. Again all I can do is to come into places like this and maybe, just maybe, I'll bump into one.

But the real question here is can those perspectives be exhausted? Can the universe ever really know itself? No.

I can only assume that I am missing your point here. The distinction seems rather clear to me. A dead baby or an apple plucked out of a barrel. Which is more likely to generate discussion and debate among philosophers or ethicists?

Serendipper wrote: Yes but why is a baby objectively more important than an apple? Why does the universe care more about babies than apples? An apple is a baby apple tree. A baby human is just another among the billions of other baby animals. Because the baby human will grow up to be arrogant, it should be given more respect?

I agree. In an essentially meaningless No God world the baby and the apple are interchangeable. Instead, what we need is a particular context construed from a particular point of view involving both an apple and a baby.

If you were minutes away from starving to death and had to choose between access to an apple tree or saving a baby's life, which would you choose? It could only be one or the other. Is there a way to determine philosophically how one ought to choose -- is morally obligated to choose here?

There is no moral obligation to choose one over the other. I'd choose the one that causes the least pain to me. Because of the way I'm wired up, that might be the baby. But if I were a lizard, it would be the apple. It's all rooted in empathy which is a higher cognitive process not found in lizards. Lizards and psychopaths have no mechanism to feel certain kinds of pain.

From my frame of mind this is rooted in dasein ["I" configured existentially], conflicting goods [the baby lives and I die] and political economy [the reaction of those in power able to reward or punish you for what you choose].

The only thing that matters is how much pain you feel. You will always do what's best for you.

iambiguous wrote:The only way I could be construed as an objectivist here [as I understand the meaning of it] is to insist that all others are obligated to think as I do.

There is some meat!

that's where I discovered05:31at least in this very simple operation05:33of counting the great difference in what05:36goes on in a head when people think05:39they're doing the same thing and so it05:42struck me therefore if that's already05:44true at the most elementary level that05:47when we learn the mathematics and the05:48bus'll functions and the Exponential's05:50and the electric fields and all these05:52things that the imagery's and method by05:56which we're storing it all and the way05:58we think about it could be really if we06:01could get to each other's heads entirely06:03different and in fact why somebody06:06sometimes has a great deal of difficulty06:08understanding a point which you see is06:09obvious and vice-versa06:12it may be because it's a little hard to06:14translate what you just said into his06:15particular framework and so on now I'm06:18talking like a psychologist that you06:19know I know nothing about this

All things that are now once were "not yet". Everything "then" comes before everything as it "now" is. Ergo, it is pointless to assign causation, since that would be to pick a detail out of the whole of what came before.

That in physics one speaks of local causality shows a failure of physics in the light of this reasoned law. Ergo, its falling back on probabilities and accidents.

Causality is false, since there is no possibility of asking about it. All things, the whole past, become all things, the whole now. Nothing can be carved out and named other than "all things" as those things that, each one, belong to the whole of the past.

iambiguous wrote:How can the existence of existence itself be defined?!

That's what I'm saying: it's nonsense. But if you mean something by it, then what do you mean?

Actually, when I think about it, until I understand existence itself [if it can even be understood], I have no way of knowing if it can be defined. And you have no way in which to know if defining it is nonsense.

And what I mean by it is simply this: that I think that I exist.

That's all it takes, right?

Instead, you insist that...

Serendipper wrote: I told you before: something exists in terms of a context. But the totality of everything has no context in which to exist, so it can't be thought of in that way: as existing. It doesn't exist unless you specify what it exists in relation to, and since there is nothing not already contained in the totality that is everything, then there is nothing that the totality can be said to exist in relation to.

As though infinitesimally tiny specks of existence like you and I can actually assert things like this as anything other than intellectual gibberish.

I did not "orchestrate" my own existence but I do seem to be around to point that out. Then we're back to situating that observation in an understanding of existence itself.

Serendipper wrote: Everything is a contraption. We cannot think in terms of anything other than contraptions. So pointing out that everything is a contraption doesn't change anything or convey any information.

Depends on how broadly you want to define "contraption".

There are nature's contraptions embedded in the laws of physics.

Serendipper wrote: There are no "laws" of physics. There are only observed regularities and there is not enough evidence to proclaim them laws.

Depends on how broadly you want to define "laws". And the assumption that one can actually grasp an entirely objective and all-inclusive definition. One that encompasses all interactions in the either/or world going back to whatever brought into existence the first interaction. Or a precise understanding of why there have never not been interactions.

Defining and describing an apple is one thing. Reacting to the fact that John Doe poisoned an apple that Don Trump ate, killing him, another thing altogether.

Serendipper wrote: Why?

Contraption = concept

The contraption known as reacting applied to a concept known as fact describing concepts known as names, such as John Doe, and concepts such as poisons and yada yada.

The smurf smurfed the smurfy smurf before it smurfed the smurf. All contraptions.

Come on, in a world where it is presumed that human autonomy does in fact exist, an apple is an apple. Reacting to the fact that someone poisoned the president's apple and killed him engenders consequences that are construed subjectively [differently] by different individuals.

Only in an entirely determined world would the definition of an apple and our reaction to what any particular apple is used for be interchangable. Or so it seems to me.

Really? Okay, demonstrate this. Demonstrate that there is absolutely no possibility that an absolute morality exist in regard to an issue like abortion.

Serendipper wrote: Demonstrate that the color red exists to a blind man. I can only demonstrate what you can see. Simply see that absolute anything cannot exist and there is your demonstration, but I can't make you see that, especially if you're determined not to.

That is just more intellectual gibberish to me. Imagine noting this to folks demonstrating outside an abortion clinic.

Serendipper wrote: First you have to see that existence is always relational. What something is is determine just as much by how the beholder is put together as it does how the object is put together. There is no such thing as a object existing in an objective way.

Yeah, but relationships in the either/or world do tend to stand the test of time. Whereas our reaction to these relationships revolving around things like abortion and assassinating presidents are still all across the board.

Right, like you can actually know beyond all doubt that God does not exist.

Over and again I point out that the "whole of everything" embedded in all of the "unknown unknowns" we are not yet privy to seems to be a given for all of us. Still, in a particular context relating to particular human interactions what on earth does, "you cannot verify your foundation of empiricism with empiricism" mean?

Serendipper wrote: It means you cannot use X to prove X is true. You cannot use logic to prove logic is true. You cannot use observation to prove what you're seeing is true.

Okay but again: In what particular context relating to what particular conflicting behaviors?

Serendipper wrote: All of em. You can't use a thing itself to prove a thing is true. Like the bible is true because it says it's true.

On the other hand, one is able to demonstrate that the bible she is holding in her hand exists. Assuming of course that reality here is not a sim world or a demonic dream or something of that sort.

I note this...

...we understand the dots and connecting them in different ways. There are factors/variables that we can explore and probe relating to the choices that we make from moment to moment. And there is how you connect them to that which you construe to be "fundamental forces". You seem to be insisting here that the fact that they are connected need be as far as we go. You see no need to bring this down to earth and note how this particular intellectual contraption is related existentially to the things that you do. That way [in my opinion] you can stay up in the clouds encompassed in your "general descriptions" of these relationships.

And you respond...

Serendipper wrote: There are no dots, just is just the whole thing, but you cut it apart and ask how this affects that, but forgot that it's all one thing and there is no this or that independent of the whole. Cut it this way and see there is a different way of joining them back together than if you had cut it some other way.

Here's a way to bring it down to earth: Feynman recounted a time he was investigating his estimation of the passage of time, so he'd count and found counting to 48 was about a minute. Then he'd do chores while counting to see if there were any effects (there were none), but he found he could not talk while counting. He was at Princeton at the time and met up with a mathematician who expressed disbelief that he could not talk and count, and found it incredible that he could read while counting. So they compared notes and found that Feynman was using a verbal center of his brain to count while the mathematician was using a visual center, so Feynman could read and count, but not talk; and the mathematician could talk, but not read. There's two ways of cutting apart the same problem, which is how to use a brain to count. Why one or the other? Idk, that's a new problem to cut up.

What I aim to explore here is the dots that are connected between "I" and the things that I choose to do -- go bowling? rob a bank? masturbate? kill someone?

How are experiences of this sort related to "fundamental forces"? What of these experiences can we pin down factually, and what of them can be encompassed morally or rationally or epistemologically?

Serendipper wrote: Where is the empirical proof that empirical proof is relevant?

Well, if by empirical evidence we mean "the information received by means of the senses, particularly by observation and documentation of patterns and behavior through experimentation" science seems to make use of it re the laws of nature. Engineers and the inventors of technology [like computers] seem to find it especially reliable.

Serendipper wrote: What do you consider observation? Is 2+2=4 observed or deduced? What's the difference? Do you see what I mean? Do you observe what I mean? Do you deduce what I mean?

I don't construe this as addressing the point I made. The either/or world is bursting at the seams with empirical relationships that science and inventors and engineers are able to reconfigure into buildings and airplanes and spaceships and smart phones. Both induction and deduction are utilized in accomplishing these transformations.

Serendipper wrote: Induction and deduction are not the same as observation and deduction. Observation and deduction are the same thing, just with different sense organs. The empirical proof that empirical proof is relevant is observed empirically. The foundation supports itself. Outside of circular arguments, where is the proof? There is none. How do you prove logic is true without using logic? How do you prove what you see is what you see without appealing to what you see?

Again, you see this as addressing the point I am making, but I do not. What I want is to take this sort of "general description" intellectual assessment down to earth. A context in which flesh and blood human beings interact.

My own conjectures here revolve around two general assumptions:

1] the gap between what any of us think we know about these relationships here and now and all there is to be known about the existence of existence itself

Serendipper wrote: What the heck? Define existence of existence itself. If you're going to use it in a sentence, define what it means.

Back again to that: defining the existence of existence itself! Something that [in my view] can only be grasped "intellectually" "theoretically" in a "world of words" inside one's head.

Unless of course you can explain existence itself. Explain why something exists rather than nothing at all. Explain why this something exist instead of something else.

Given, for example, this part:

It turns out that roughly 68% of the universe is dark energy. Dark matter makes up about 27%. The rest - everything on Earth, everything ever observed with all of our instruments, all normal matter - adds up to less than 5% of the universe.

2] the implications embedded in a wholly determined universe regarding anything we might think or feel or say or do

Serendipper wrote: Either the whole determined universe is you or there is no you. Either way works. There is either an environment or an organism, but not both. As long as you divide them up, you're going to wonder which is determining the other.

And this explains what exactly? Situate this particular observation existentially out in the world that we interact in.

Come on, the gap here between my experiences, relationships, and access to information/knowledge and all there is to know about all there is to know is the equivalent of a teeny, tiny drop of water in the ocean. There is a staggering amount of experiences and ideas that I have had no contact with at all. The same with all the rest of us.

And even as I type these words, who knows how many folks are out there with points of view that I have never even really considered. Points of view far, far more sophisticated than mine. Again all I can do is to come into places like this and maybe, just maybe, I'll bump into one.

Serendipper wrote: But the real question here is can those perspectives be exhausted? Can the universe ever really know itself? No.

The real question and the real answer? And yet the only thing that I can reasonably conclude is that here and now [or, rather, there and then] you believe this to be true "in your head". And that this is demonstration enough for you.

I get that part, believe me.

Serendipper wrote: Yes but why is a baby objectively more important than an apple? Why does the universe care more about babies than apples? An apple is a baby apple tree. A baby human is just another among the billions of other baby animals. Because the baby human will grow up to be arrogant, it should be given more respect?

I agree. In an essentially meaningless No God world the baby and the apple are interchangeable. Instead, what we need is a particular context construed from a particular point of view involving both an apple and a baby.

If you were minutes away from starving to death and had to choose between access to an apple tree or saving a baby's life, which would you choose? It could only be one or the other. Is there a way to determine philosophically how one ought to choose -- is morally obligated to choose here?

Serendipper wrote: There is no moral obligation to choose one over the other. I'd choose the one that causes the least pain to me. Because of the way I'm wired up, that might be the baby. But if I were a lizard, it would be the apple. It's all rooted in empathy which is a higher cognitive process not found in lizards. Lizards and psychopaths have no mechanism to feel certain kinds of pain.

In my view, in a No God world there is no essential moral obligation that a mere mortal can fall back on. But that observation in and of itself is predicated on the existential contraption that is "I".

There may well be an essesntial obligation that over the course of living my life I have yet to come upon. Maybe in the next thread I click on here I will find it. But even then coming to believe that this encompasses [philosophically, deontologically] an essential moral obligation and demonstrating it in any particular context are two different things.

And what this is all rooted in [in my view] is the particular confluence of genes and memes encompassing "I" here and now out in a particular world construed in a particular way.

Then in what I am able to demonstrate that all reasonable men and women are obligated to believe in turn. Then in connecting the dots here between that and all that can be known about the existence of existence itself.

Which "in reality" I am not even remotely capable of doing. Anymore in my view than you are.

From my frame of mind this is rooted in dasein ["I" configured existentially], conflicting goods [the baby lives and I die] and political economy [the reaction of those in power able to reward or punish you for what you choose].

Serendipper wrote: The only thing that matters is how much pain you feel. You will always do what's best for you.

Again, everything here is embedded in a particular context which affords you particular options. The only thing that really matters is the extent to which one of those options allows me to do what's best for me.

You may believe that saving yourself and letting the baby die is best for you. But others might insist that you were morally obligated to at least try to save the baby first.

Then what?

He was like a man who wanted to change all; and could not; so burned with his impotence; and had only me, an infinitely small microcosm to convert or detest. John Fowles